Kay and Doug from SubmarineBoat.com have posted these YouTube videos on melting lead (in their instance from wheel weights) for sailboat ballast.

Lots of people talk about using this rather hot, messy and slightly dangerous technique to obtain their needed ballast, but this is one of the best visual examples I've seen of actually doing it, including a lot of useful information.

Part I:

Keep reading for more...

Part II:

These were linked to from an OrigamiBoats thread titled "Getting ballast lead at 27 cents a pound." From this beginning, the posts turned to a very entertaining discussion on recovering spent bullets from firing ranges. Doesn't sound very easy, but often free :-)

Doug and Kay have a great design for their melter (or is that a smelter) - 30,000 pounds of lead. This is going to take a while.